He rang the bell and heard a deep gong from within the house. About ten seconds passed before he heard the sound of a security chain sliding into its groove. The door cracked open about three inches. Above the taut chain were two of the largest, spookiest eyes George had ever seen, so pale blue that they were almost the color of skim milk.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I was looking for someone down the lane, at the cottage by the water, and I was wondering if you had any information about whether anyone’s living there.”
The woman took a half step back, and George could see her better. She could have been twenty-five or forty-five or somewhere in between. She had long, stringy hair, parted in the middle. She wore a patterned housedress, the kind that zips up the front, but it was too large for her and slid down off one shoulder. Her skin was so white, it was almost transparent. You could tell that she had once been beautiful; she had elfin features and prominent cheekbones. Her lips were wide and flat, but they were deeply dried out, lined with tiny cracks and fissures, and one side of her mouth had a white crusty appearance.
She grasped her housedress with one hand and bunched it together at her chest. “I don’t really live here,” she said. “It’s a family house,” she added.
“No worries. I was just wondering about that cottage. My friend told me she had been staying there, but I just went and looked at it, and it seems pretty unlivable. You don’t know anything about it?”
She leaned her large head forward and shifted her eyes in the direction of the cottage as though she could possibly see it from inside the house. Her head was so close to George’s that he could smell her breath, sour like wet grain. “No one lives there. At least no one that I’ve ever known has lived there.”
“Do you know who owns it?”
“No.”
“Who owns this house?” he asked and watched her lean back fractionally from the door, her puffy eyelids lowering. George knew he had asked too much.
“Do you have a cigarette?” she asked.
“No, sorry, I don’t.”
“Okay. Well, I should go.” She shut the door. A cloud had passed over the sun, and it suddenly felt like dusk under the spread of trees. In the stillness, George could hear two gulls squawking at each other over the marsh. It seemed an odd sound in the dark shadows of the pines. He returned to his car and drove back to Boston.
After parking in his garage, George walked slowly back to his apartment. He planned to sleep. To ignore doorbells and raps on the door. To ignore ringing phones. He didn’t know what he planned on doing after he’d slept, but he’d worry about that then. The ride back from New Essex had been sludgy and surreal, the tiredness catching up with him.
George had lived in his neighborhood long enough to be able to instantly detect an unfamiliar car. In front of his building was a white Suzuki Samurai, its removable hard top still on. It had racing stripes on its boxy sides in black and red and the word SAMURAI was still stenciled in white across the top of the windshield. There were two occupants, one large and one small, behind the shielding glare of its front windshield. George slowed down, knowing with all certainty that they were there for him, and as he slowed both doors opened. From the driver’s side emerged the large, pear-shaped man George had met at MacLean’s house in Newton. The other Donald Jenks, or DJ, as MacLean had referred to him. He looked toward George, held up a hand in what seemed a gesture of friendliness, and turned toward his companion, the woman getting out of the passenger side. She was familiar to George as well. He recognized her as the young woman who had let him into MacLean’s house. The police detectives had mentioned a name, but he’d forgotten it.
“George Foss,” she said in a querulous manner.
George nodded and came forward. She moved around the Suzuki to stand by the man. “I’m sorry . . . your name?” George said.
“I’m Karin Boyd. We met yesterday in Newton. I let you into Gerry MacLean’s house.”
“Right. Of course.”
She looked less officious than she had before. She wore black capri pants and a white sleeveless shirt with a scoop neck. Her blond hair was down and slightly frizzy in the humidity. Her eyes looked smudged and red, as though she’d been crying, and George remembered that the detectives had told him that she was MacLean’s niece.
“Do you mind if we talk with you for a moment?”
The driver of the vehicle stepped forward. “We met as well. It’s Donald Jenks. DJ.” He produced an ID from his wallet, identifying himself as a private investigator. Close up, he was a handsome man, his face tanned and poreless, and with a trimmed dark mustache above his upper lip. “I’m a private detective who was employed by the deceased. You are aware that Gerald MacLean is now deceased?”
George said that he was.
“We’d like to speak with you.”
George, hesitant to invite them into his apartment, suggested a nearby coffee shop. They found a back corner table as far as possible from the counter. George bought himself a large iced coffee, but neither Karin Boyd nor DJ ordered anything. When George sat down at the table, the pint glass of coffee already slick with condensation, DJ said, “We’re leaving the murder investigation up to the police, Mr. Foss, but we’d like your help in possibly recovering what was stolen. There’s a lot of money involved.”
George, in the time it took to buy himself a coffee, had decided to tell them just as much as he’d told the police. He would leave out the part about someone impersonating Jenks. He knew he might eventually have to tell everything, but for now he still felt like there were things better left unsaid until he understood them better himself. A part of him was worried about Liana, and a bigger part was now worried about Irene.
“The police didn’t tell me much,” George said. “What happened?”
DJ and Karin glanced at one another, and Karin said, “Just tell us how you became involved first. Why were you sent by Jane Byrne to return the money she stole?”
“I’ll tell you what I told the police. Jane was someone I knew in college, although I knew her by a different name—”
“What name was that?” DJ asked and pulled out a cell phone with a keyboard. George told him, “Audrey Beck,” the same name he had given the police, and DJ typed it in with his thumbs as quickly and smoothly as a texting teenager.
“I hadn’t seen her in twenty years. We met at a bar . . . it was near here . . . and she asked me to do her this favor. It seemed strange, but she explained that she wanted to return the money without having to come face-to-face with MacLean—with your uncle,” he said to Karin. “It made sense to me at the time.”
“Where did you go after you left the house?”
“I drove to Saugus and met . . . Jane at the Kowloon. I told her how it went. She seemed relieved. We had dinner. Can one of you please tell me how MacLean was killed? I think it would help me in trying to help you. Did it happen right after I left?”
Again they glanced at each other, and Karin almost imperceptibly nodded at DJ. It was clear that he was now in her employ.
“He was hit on the back of the head with a hammer.” DJ tapped the back of his head with a hand that was small for his size. He wore a wedding band, and his fingernails looked as though they were professionally manicured. “It was in his bedroom, and it was probably just moments after you left the house. You’re very lucky that Karin saw you leave the house, Mr. Foss, or I think the police would have you in custody right now.”
“You saw me leave?” he asked Karin. George didn’t remember seeing her on his way out of MacLean’s house.
“I have an office on the second floor. My uncle popped in after his meeting with you, and before he went to his room, just to let me know that everything had gone okay. I stepped out of my office, and I could see you from the balcony. There are windows above the front door. You were getting into your car and leaving. You understand that this doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re involved with my uncle’s death.” Her eyes had the flat impassive look of a
trained interrogator.
“I promise you that all I thought I was doing was returning money for a friend. I knew nothing about a murder until the police showed up at my place this morning.”
Karin looked at him with her unchanging expression. She had pale, slightly freckled skin and was not wearing makeup. A pinkish blotch had spread at the base of her throat, caused by either the humidity of the day or the stress of the situation.
“We believe you, Mr. Foss,” DJ said with the calm tone of a lawyer about to reveal his surprise witness to win the case. “What we’re really after is some kind of lead to finding out where Jane Byrne is, or to finding out who she really is.”
“So I take it that the money is gone?”
“The money that you brought in the suitcase?”
“Yes.”
“Well, yes, that money is gone, but that’s not entirely the issue at hand. The reason Mr. MacLean went to his bedroom after seeing you was to put that money in his safe. We’re assuming that whoever killed him was waiting in that room for him. A second-floor window was open at the back of the house, and we think that’s how they got in. There were gardeners around, and they usually bring ladders, because of the wisteria. None of this is an excuse. We should have had better security. Anyway, the safe had been opened, and everything but his papers was gone. Mr. MacLean didn’t trust in currency, not completely anyway, and for several years he’d been buying up uncut diamonds. Expensive ones, with rare colors. It became almost a hobby with him, wouldn’t you say, Karin? He had significant assets in that safe. Worth a lot of money, a lot more money than five hundred thousand dollars. We can only assume that the money was returned in order to get him to open up the safe; then he was attacked, and the safe was looted. I am positive that it was the diamonds they were after. Your friend clearly knew about them. This is a very serious situation.”
As soon as DJ mentioned the safe, the air inside the coffee shop began to swim a little in front of George’s eyes. Not because he was confused, or overtired, or confounded by too much information, but because it was suddenly so clear to him, the final piece falling into place. All along he’d been thinking that what was at stake was a gym bag full of money, more cash than he’d ever see in his lifetime, but that was just bait, a device used to get MacLean to open his safe at a specific time.
“You okay?”
“Sorry,” George said. “I didn’t know about the safe. How much were the diamonds worth?”
DJ and Karin looked at each other. DJ spoke: “I’m not at liberty to say exactly how much, but it was significant. At least five million dollars, we think. We are not accusing you of taking the diamonds, I hope you understand. . . .”
“No, no, I understand completely. Sorry. This is a new development to me. Obviously.” George looked helplessly at his half-filled iced coffee. A cube of ice shifted in the glass.
“As I said,” DJ continued, “we were wondering if you had any idea how to contact Jane Byrne, or where she might have been staying while she was up here. Anything would help.”
George barely heard the words. His mind was racing to keep up with the new information he was getting. And it was all bad news. Unwittingly or not, George knew he’d been involved in getting a man killed. He took a sip of his coffee to buy time, but his stomach churned and saliva squirted into his mouth. Breathing deeply through his nose, he said, “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to keep up with what you’re telling me, and it’s a little upsetting. I need to go to the bathroom.” He said these words while pushing back his chair, rising, and walking away from the table. He was now convinced he was going to be sick. The men’s room door, toward the back of the coffee shop, swung open, and he pulled and latched it. Its fluorescent light fluttered in an irregular pattern. The floor was wet, as though recently mopped, but it still looked dirty, dark hairs clinging to the tiles. George kneeled down in front of the toilet. The smell of ancient pipes reached his nostrils, and he buckled, now willing himself to be sick despite the shooting pains in his side. Nothing else happened. The churning nausea disappeared and was replaced by dizziness. He pushed himself back onto his feet by gripping the edges of the toilet bowl. He ran cold water from the tap and washed his hands several times, then splashed water onto his face and the back of his neck. He breathed deeply again through his nose and stood, leaning against the sink.
He looked at himself in the mirror. The paleness of his skin shocked him. His hair was wet with sweat. I’ve been a fucking fool, George thought, staring at his reflection for another minute, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
Chapter 15
George rolled his body so that he was on his back. Two men entered the room and shut the door behind them. One of them, the smaller and skinnier of the two, tried to stomp on George’s knee and missed. The other one, taller and fatter, said:
“Get up, asshole. I’ll fucking kill you.”
George slid back toward the middle of the room, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light. The men were his age, or younger, still in their teens. They looked like a couple of high school linebackers dressed to go to a Burger King on a Saturday night. They each wore stonewashed jeans and tucked-in Ocean Pacific T-shirts.
“Maybe I’ll stay down here,” George said.
“Fucking faggot,” said the one who hadn’t spoken before. “If we say get up, then you get up.”
“Let me think about that for a moment.”
The littler one, the stomper, reached down and grabbed the front of George’s last clean shirt. George tried to punch him in the nose, missed, and hit him in the Adam’s apple instead. He made a ragged sucking noise and jumped back, his hand at his neck, his mouth wide open in an “O.”
“Asshole,” the kid managed to croak.
George stood up. He knew he should feel scared, but his instinct for survival kept him calm. He held both hands palms out. “I don’t know what you two want—” he began.
The larger kid charged him. George tried to throw a punch, but before his fist even got all the way back he was tackled and dropped to the top of the freshly made bed. His assailant twisted George’s limbs so that he was pinned facedown, the back of his neck held by a forearm, the small of his back speared by a knee.
“How do you like that, asshole? How do you like that?”
Assuming it was a rhetorical question, George said nothing in return. The kid he’d punched in the neck walked over to the edge of the bed, stepping into the slivered light that came through the pulled blinds. He was breathing easier and gingerly fingering his neck. He had a narrow chin, red with acne, and a crew cut that showed a white scalp speckled with moles.
“I oughta fucking kill you,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Just tell me what I did,” George said.
“You know what you did,” the big guy said as he leaned all his weight onto the knee that pushed against George’s spine. A spring broke inside the bed.
“Honestly, I don’t. Has this got something to do with Audrey Beck?”
“No duh,” said Skinny, who was now moving his jaw in a circular motion, like an airline passenger trying to pop his ears.
“Seriously, I don’t know anything more than you probably know. I don’t even know if I really knew her.”
“You get her into drugs?”
“Look, I don’t think we’re talking about the same person. Audrey Beck didn’t go to college. Someone went in her place. Audrey went down to West Palm Beach with someone named Ian King. I swear to God.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Let me up a moment. I’ll tell you.”
“Yeah, right,” said Skinny, while the kid holding George performed another complicated set of wrestling moves and turned him so that he was on his back, the knee now in his solar plexus. George got a look at his primary assailant. He was wide and tall with a fat chin and a forehead bigger than the rest of his face. His blond hair was short on the top and sides and long at the back.
“Will you just listen to me
for a moment? I’m not lying. I don’t think I ever met Audrey Beck.”
Forehead shook his head, like a parent being lied to by a young child. “If we find out you had anything to do with what happened to her, I will hunt you down like a deer and shoot you. You understand?”
“Yeah, b—”
“You understand, asshole?”
“Yeah.”
“Scott, let me punch him in the throat like he punched me.”
“I’ll do it,” said Scott and reared a doughy fist back. George scrunched his shoulders up and tucked his chin down to his chest so that when he got punched it was partly on the upper lip and partly on the nose. Blood sprang from both places, and tears streamed from his eyes.
The boys took off as fast as they had come.
George stumbled to the bathroom and put his face into a thin towel that smelled of bleach. The worst pain was in his nose; second place was a tie between his cheekbones and eye sockets. He held the towel against his face for about five minutes, then realized that the door wasn’t locked. He walked across the room, locked the door, then sat down on the bed and dialed the phone number from the note he’d found on his car. His heart was pulsing in his chest, and he wondered if he’d have trouble speaking when it came time to speak.
The Girl with a Clock for a Heart: A Novel Page 12
